Chapter 3

The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis:

The Case of Belarusian Patriotic
Advertising

Yuliya Martinavichene

Abstract After the collapse of the USSR, Belarusians entered a brand new era of
independence experiencing a profound lack of a collective sense of identity. Having
become an independent state, Belarus had to assert itself both as a new player in the
international political arena and as a homeland for people with a unique national
identity. Through the period of President Lukashenko’s rule, several public cam-
paigns have been introduced aimed at construing a certain view of Belarus and
Belarusians. The initial aim was to provide an internally significant nationalistic
discourse and actualize the point of shared identification, which, as I argue, is
intrinsically connected with present political power and designed to legitimize it.
This paper aims to develop a framework for analyzing the processes of reimagining
Belarusian identity through the discourse of outdoor public campaigns, employing a
mixed analytical technique of semiotic and content analysis that is considered to be
especially helpful in the analysis of ideologically driven media messages.

Keywords Ethnic identity National identity Imagined communities




Belarus Foucault Krippendorf Patriotic public campaign


Visual qualitative content analysis Social semiotics

3.1 After the Collapse: Belarusian National Identity

at a Crossroads

Belarus is one of the states that appeared at a crossroads when the USSR disinte-
grated. For years, the political and cultural history of Belarus had been dominated
by a world superpower, which, perforce, hardly influenced its image as a distinct
nation with its own national traits and cultural specifics.
Having received independence after the ratification of the Belovezha Accords,
Belarus, however, experienced certain problems with defining its linguistic and

Y. Martinavichene (&)
European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania
e-mail: julia.martinavichene@ehu.lt

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 29

O. Andreica and A. Olteanu (eds.), Readings in Numanities, Numanities - Arts
and Humanities in Progress 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66914-4_3
30 Y. Martinavichene

cultural entity. The processes of disintegration made people redefine their ethnic
identity, because they could no longer call themselves simply “Soviet people”—
from then on Belarusians had to identify themselves exclusively with the Belarusian
nation. It is not surprising, that many researchers in the early 2000s characterized
modern Belarusian identity as fragmentary and fuzzy, and Belarusian society as
experiencing a profound lack of consensus about the grounds for collective identity
(Babkou 2003; Rudkouski 2005, 2006; Akudovich 2004).
It is also symptomatic, that in recent years Belarusian identity has been studied in
close correspondence with the processes of state-building. Such research focus is not
accidental. The question of national identity shifted to the top of the agenda for both
intellectual and political elites, and from the very beginning was used as a means of
regulating and controlling the political participation of the Belarusian people.
Some researchers (see, for example, Babkou 2003 and Shparaha 2005), how-
ever, propose an alternative way of defining Belarusian identity, conceptualizing it
not as a fixed ethno-cultural or national entity, but as a regional and not limited to
the territorial unity of Belarus.
As Eke and Kuzio (2000: 525) point out, “If a state inherits no unified national
identity, such as Belarus and the majority of Soviet successor states, the ruling elites
are called upon to utilize state resources in a policy of nation building to create
national and political unity”. In the case of Belarus, it is particularly true: the State
endeavored to provide a controlling framework for constructing Belarusian national
identity as a predominantly politically charged one.

3.2 National Identity Through the Constructivist Lenses

Zygmunt Bauman in his influential essay “Soil, Blood and Identity” links nation-
alism and ideology arguing that nationalism is “an attempt made by the modern
elites to recapture the allegiance (in the form of cultural hegemony) of the masses”
(Bauman 1992: 675). Establishing a discourse on uniform national identity opens
the way for the standardization and normalization of individuals, reducing them to a
common denominator and transforming them into more easily defined and thus
more easily ruled masses.
Bauman (following Nietzsche) also points at the artificial and mythical character
of a nation: although it is often represented (and decoded) as “a natural, God-given
way of classifying men” (Bauman 1992: 676), “nation is incomplete without its
conscience arousing’ spokespersons” (Bauman 1992: 686).
In this context we can hardly define national identity as a group of certain
objective characteristics that are common for most members of a certain group, but
rather as a number of claims about what this group is (or should be). National identity
appears to be profoundly instructed by the cultural symbols constituted for it by the
instance of power and recognized by the members of the community as legitimate.
Another way to conceptualize the nation as a construct is introduced in Benedict
Anderson’s notion of imagined communities (Anderson 1991). As Anderson puts it,
3 The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis … 31

any nation is an imagined political community as soon as “the members of even the
smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even
hear of them, yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson
1991: 6). The word image is highly symptomatic here since it stresses the idea of
communal being as something artificially ideated and externally organized around
common denominators (shared space, language, and common history are most
habitually employed). Thus, national identity easily becomes an object of institutional
managerial efforts that nowadays, in the era of predominant visuality, often result in
producing actual visual images mapping out particular versions of national identities.

3.3 The State as a Manager of Normative Identity: The

Case of Belarus

In the post-Soviet Belarus, which experienced a profound lack of national identity

due to its turmoil and historical past, the identity-building (as well as
community-building) processes were destined to become a conscious political act.
There was a genuine demand for the point of shared identification that could hold
together a crowd and thus for a narrative that could mobilize Belarusians around a
new way of being together (both in a social and political sense) and by which they
could constitute their collective and personal identity.
An active phase of the public construction of the Belarusian identity began in the
early 2000s. For a period of more than 10 years a new way of speaking about
Belarusians as an independent and distinctive nation has been under construction.
Throughout this period the narrative unity of Belarusian life has been reinvented,
which has gained constant visibility in the urban environment through the medium
of posters on billboards, these have became a disciplinary (in a Foucauldian sense)
site of inspecting a visitatorial gaze that supervises and organizes bodies in time and
space. The obtrusive omnipresence of these messages is reminiscent of a functional
principle of Panopticon, which, according to Foucault, exists in order “to induce in
the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic
functioning of power” (Foucault 1977: 202). Thus an effect of such an apparatus
would be enclosing individuals “in a power situation of which they are themselves
the bearers” (Foucault 1977: 202).
A considerable amount of messages and the longevity of their display are
extraordinary and not surprising at the same time. By filling up a public space with
official versions of Belarusian identity the State does not need to repress and
exercise power directly, but “can reduce the number of those who exercise it, while
increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised” (Foucault 1977: 207).
Having obtained the exclusive right for representation of a Belarusian national
identity, the State offers a particular ideologically driven version of knowledge about
Belarusians. This particular point of view appears to be total and inclusive as the
State not only produces and accumulates the discursive means for a public version of
the Belarusian national identity, but it also enjoys the unique right to circulate these
messages and sustain their constant functioning as a congenital part of the public
32 Y. Martinavichene

sphere. The administrative and ideological function of this discourse consist of

interpellating individuals into certain codes of interpretation, which are at the same
time forms of consciousness and value systems. Recognizing such messages as a
legitimate discourse on identity and patriotism, individuals automatically legitimize
an official version of Belarusian identity that is enunciated through this discourse.
Moreover, posters of each campaign provide a normative version of the
Belarusian identity, and, at the same time, images of a normal (average) Belarusian
individual. Depicting a certain type of Belarusians, this discourse provides seemingly
established standards for Belarusian identity and embeds a normalizing judgment
about it in the public sphere. These messages function as a media frame, “a set of
interpretive packages that give meaning to an issue” (Gamson and Modigliani 1989:
3). As there is no widely spread and highly visible alternative in defining the sense of
Belarusian identity, this discourse functions as an exclusive operator of the political
integrity of the Belarusian state, and leaves no space for re-interpreting the field.
It is worth noting that public “patriotic campaigns” is not the only way of
constructing the Belarusian identity. Another discursive instrument of re-imagining
the Belarusian community are Presidential addresses on different occasions (pre-
dominantly festive ones—national holidays, significant dates, and others). This
ritualistic discourse constructs the image of a nation as a home and, at the same
time, as a fortress, while employing the figure of a Father as a patron of the nation.
Accentuating unity as a necessary requirement for stability and prosperity,
Lukashenko employs strategies of re-constituting the identification between the
people and the Belarusian state by means of constructing images of internal and
external enemies. The other prerequisites for national well-being are wisdom and,
most importantly, diligence (usually illustrated with examples from the key pro-
fessions) (see for an extended analysis Solvita 2010).
However, in this system of meanings the borders of the Belarusian semiosphere
could have merged with a more general semiosphere of the post-Soviet people in
which the rhetoric of a safe home and demonized internal and external enemies as a
means of holding the masses together and creating the point of shared identification is
not something unique and unparalleled. In this context it is impossible to overstate the
importance of a populistic visual discourse on the meaning of national identity. It has
become a locus for mass consumption of ready-made images that are administered by
political elites and fits perfectly into a general scheme of redefining Belarusian na-
tional identity, which as a result functions both in the aural-verbal (Presidential
addresses) and visual (outdoor public campaigns, posters, TV clips) registers.

3.4 A Historical Overview of Identity-Building Public

Campaigns in Belarus

In 2003 a years-long project of public campaigns promoting the image of an

average Belarusian and Belarus as a nation-state began. For more than ten years a
visual narrative about the Belarusian nation, its everydayness and holidays has
3 The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis … 33

already been publicly presented, aiming at building a common we-identity for

Belarusians and thus creating the narrative unity of their lives. National unity within
a family-modeled state has been constantly promoted as the strongest point of
identification and a guarantee of a prosperous future.
Through this period Belarusians witnessed several such campaigns, each with its
own slogan, which in many cases appears to be borrowed from the programme of
Presidential speeches. Most of them employed outdoor wide-format posters as a
primary medium that has two main advantages: billboards are highly visible in an
urban environment, and the network of billboards in Belarus is quite dense.
Elsewhere I conceptualize such placement as an essential means of a panoptic
controlling gaze and analyze the phenomena in a more detail (Martinavichene 2017,
forthcoming). Nevertheless, for many Belarusians these posters have already
become a habitual part of the everyday semiotic milieu.
Below is the list of Belarusian patriotic public campaigns in a chronological
order. Some of them have lasted for years, and random images can still be found in
the cities and along the highways. A sign (…) in the names of campaigns means
that a general scheme is diversified with different epithets, usually referring to
prosperity, success, and stability. In most cases these campaigns exceed the format
of outdoor posters and employ other instruments of mass-mediated campaigns and
PR-instruments, such as thematic holidays and contests, public initiatives, bro-
chures, concerts, etc. Officially these campaigns are announced as a “creative
intellectuals’ initiative”. For example, a press-release for the “We are Belarusians”
campaign states that, “in recent years, there an initiative of creative intellectuals to
mount public cultural campaigns, where the leading and honoured art workers take
part, has emerged.”1
The list of Belarusian patriotic public campaigns in chronological order:
2003—For (…) Belarus
2004—Belarus is for (…)
2006—The State is for the People
2007—For you, Belarus!
2008—We are Belarusians
2009—I ♡ Belarus
2010—Together we are Belarus
2011—Belarus is my (…)
2013—Belarus, keep flourishing!
Each campaign consists of several, usually photographic, images that can be
attributed as documentary photography. Although there is no officially confirmed
information on the process of production, several sources report that some of the
photographs are not intentionally taken for each campaign, and are randomly
selected from the photographic archives of the Belarusian Telecommunication
Agency (BelTA).

1
http://www.partal.by/allnews/mainnews/obschestvenno-kulturnuyu_699.html.
34 Y. Martinavichene

Taking into consideration political context, in which practices of visual nation

construction are being materialized through the medium of outdoor public service
advertising, it is of crucial importance to understand this discourse very carefully,
with all possible sensitivity to its ideological aims and actual ways in which pat-
terned systems of meaning for national identity are created functions both in the
aural-verbal (Presidential addresses) and visual (outdoor public campaigns, posters,
TV clips) registers.

3.5 When Quantity Meets Quality: Visual Qualitative

Content Analysis as a Research Tool

The list of campaigns for a period of 10 years is quite impressive. Large-scale

campaigns [such as, “For (…) Belarus” or “Belarus is for (…)”] may employ up to
20 unique images, and this collection is ever-growing due to the ongoing yearly
production of regional or institutionally marked2 versions of campaigns.
Such a large sample of visual data requires a research method that would
combine the possibilities of working with a considerable amount of data, allowing
for the discovery of the relative frequencies in visual representations and the
making of generalizations. At the same time while researching a domain of ideo-
logically driven representations it is crucial to employ a series of qualitative
characteristics and interpretations that could counterbalance a quantitative reliance
on frequencies. As Philip Bell states it, “making generalizations about the relative
frequencies of visual representations of particular classes of people, actions, roles,
situations or events involves implicit or explicit classification and quantification of
media-circulated content” (Bell 2001: 10). Qualitative content analysis meets both
requirements.
One can find numerous definitions of content analysis. Early accounts of these
research methods necessarily include an indication of its quantitative nature. Thus,
Berelson describes content analysis as “a research technique for the objective,
systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication”
(Berelson 1952: 18). Rose (2002: 56) gives an account of this method as one “based
on counting the frequency of certain visual elements in a clearly defined sample of
images, and then analyzing those frequencies.”
However, later definitions appear to include these phenomena into a wider
context. For example, Krippendorff (2004: 3) on the first pages of the revised and
updated second edition of his seminal “Content analysis: an introduction to its
methodology” describes this research paradigm as a “systematic reading of a body
of texts, images, and symbolic matter”.

2
Such messages create a hybrid form of institutional and political advertising. Usually the role of
institutional supporters of campaigns played by state-run enterprises.
3 The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis … 35

Thus essential features of content analysis are usually characterized as belonging

to the “scientific, rather than simply interpretive” paradigm (Franzosi 2004). Its
obvious strength derives from rather high reliability, the possibility of working with
a large amount of data and making generalizations on the basis of the sample
analysis.
At the same time content analysis does not fully omit interpretive practices. As a
necessary part of its research procedures content analysis requires “a form of rea-
soning that moves from particular texts, through context-sensitive explanations of
these texts, to particular answers to questions”. (Krippendorff 2004: 344) Inferences
that “proceed across logically distinct domains, from particulars of one kind to
particulars of another kind” (Krippendorff 2004: 36) are called abductive infer-
ences, and are often associated with the practice of interpretation in general (see, for
example, Eco (1994) for a broader discussion of the issue). Thus, making a
hypothesis that would answer research questions, necessarily includes a close
interpretative reading of a body of data. As Krippendorff suggests, “ultimately, all
reading of texts is qualitative, even when certain characteristics of a text are later
converted into numbers” (Krippendorff 2004: 16).
At the same time the growing prevalence of images in mass-mediated messages
opens up another challenge for quantitative models of content analysis. As visual
signs are more ambiguous than verbal ones, and often rely on connotative meanings
and mythological codes, it is hardly possible to confine visual content analysis to
counting and interpreting frequencies of surface denotative signs. This is particularly
true when applied to the analysis of various forms of modern propaganda, including
political and commercial advertising. As Leiss, Klein, and Jhally put it,
[…] the real weakness in content analysis, especially for the study of advertising, lies in its
restricted range of application (…) it can deal only with manifest content, that is, the surface
or denotative level of messages. Modern advertising (…) works at important connotative
levels of communication with multiple levels of meaning. Most ads today have a latent
meaning that we are asked to “fill in” and thus participate in completing the message. (Leiss
et al. 1997: 224)

Thus, while visual content analysis allows for a more theoretically and
methodologically explicit type of analytical interrogation that partially moderates a
researcher’s subjectivity in making conclusions about this uneasy and ideologi-
cally driven object of analysis, some of its basic procedures may benefit from
introducing qualitative methods as supportive instruments of research. I argue that
employing semiotic methodology as a crucial part of at least two analytical pro-
cedures of content analysis, namely, devising a set of analytic categories and
interpretation of results, may help a researcher overcome some of the limitations
of quantitative procedures and develop its strengths into interpretative steps of
analysis.
In this context semiotics may introduce a pragmatic and syntactic axis of analysis
that are usually omitted from content analysis. According to Franzosi, pragmatics
had already been excluded from content analysis procedures at the early stages of its
development, which narrowed a field of interrogation to primary (or, in other words,
36 Y. Martinavichene

manifest) content only that result in developing categories that reflect only the
matters of form and main ideas of a text [see, for example, Franzosi 2004: xxvi, who
makes further references to Lasswell et al. (1942), Janis (1943)]. Thus, content
analysis has the instruments to generalize what media do show, but at the same time
it says very little about the ideologically driven aspects of messages and certain
parameters of influence on the audience. As Bell (2004: 13) emphasizes, “content
analysis alone is seldom able to support statements about the significance, effects or
interpreted meaning of a domain of representation”.
Assuming that latent content, i.e. context information (including intentionally
transmitted and unconscious meanings), is an important part of textual encoding
and decoding, context-sensitive methods of analysis produce inferences that “have a
better chance of being relevant to the users of the analyzed texts” (Krippendorff
2004: 42).
As noted before, qualitative methods may be particularly useful on the stages of
content analysis that implicitly require interpretative efforts. These are, in particular,
the stages of stating a hypothesis, developing main categories, subcategories, and
values for each category, and interpretation of the results (Krippendorff 1980; Rose
2002; van Leeuwen and Jewitt 2001).
Development of categories and values appears to be one of the decisive steps in
this process. As Berelson (1952: 147) points out, “content analysis stands or falls by
its categories”.
Whether descriptive or interpretive, categories must meet the following stan-
dards: be (1) sensitive to the research problem and exhaustive, (2) exclusive, and
(3) enlightening (Rose 2002: 60; Ball and Smith 1992: 23). However, there is still
little evidence on how categories are developed in each particular case. One may
rely on the overall theoretical context of a research problem, or/and on the
methodologies that propose a certain focus of analysis (semiotics, psychoanalysis,
etc.). Nevertheless, categories must “take on more than just the surface level of
messages” (Leiss et al. 1997: 225).
A mixed technique, combining quantitative content analysis and semiotic
analysis is not novel in media research; however, its uses still are occasional. In
1989 Marlene Fiol introduced a qualitative multi-sided semiotic technique into the
analysis of corporate language, combining it with content analysis (Fiol 1989).
Leiss et al. (1997) employed such a technique to the analysis of commercial
advertisements. Bell (2004: 24) critically notes that “the categories of visual
‘content’ which are most frequently quantified in media research arise from com-
monsense social categories (…). Such variables are not defined within any par-
ticular theoretical context which analyses visual semiotic dimension of texts”. Bell
also provides an example of using the analytical concepts derived from social
semiotics as the basis for quantification (Bell 2004: 25). Recent example of
semiotically and rhetorically inspired content analysis can be found in Rossolatos
(2013).
3 The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis … 37

3.6 Introducing Semiotics and Social Semiotics

into Content Analysis

In our case the importance of using qualitative coding based on semiotically sig-
nificant factors cannot be overstated. As long as the initial aim of visual repre-
sentations of a normalized version of national identity is reproducing and
transmitting the standard behavioral norms and values, as well as legitimizing the
current power elites, semiotic tools may help to reveal (and include into a coding
scheme) the main aspects of latent meaningful circulation of such images and
identify the ways of creating the nodal point of Belarusian identity through visual
discourses.
Accordingly, in the current research situation semiotics and social semiotics are
the main instruments of working out a coding scheme with the categories and
values relevant to the analytical goals. Social semiotics was chosen as a paradigm
where particular importance is acquired by “the way people use semiotic ‘re-
sources’ both to produce communicative artefacts and events and to interpret them
—which is also a form of semiotic production—in the context of specific social
situations and practices” (van Leeuwen 2005: xi).
The notion of a semiotic resource, originally borrowed from Halliday’s social
semiotic view of language (1978) and elaborated by Hodge and Kress (1988) and
van Leeuwen (2005), is extremely useful in our context as it brings a particular
view on meaning as inextricably embedded in social intercourse. Semiotic
resources acquire a semiotic potential “constituted by all their past uses and all their
potential uses and an actual semiotic potential constituted by those past uses that are
known to and considered relevant by the users of the resource, and by such
potential uses as might be uncovered by the users on the basis of their specific needs
and interests” (van Leeuwen 2005: 4).
Thus, signifying potential is ‘unlocked’ only in a particular context, and a pri-
mary research activity is to inventorize a semiotic resource “from a point of view of
a…specific relevance criterion” and describe its actual uses in a particular context
(van Leeuwen 2005: 5–6). In this sense the procedures of quantification of semiotic
resources through defining variables and appropriate values followed by compar-
ative generalizations give common ground for content analysis and social semiotics,
and provide a field for their potential collaboration.

3.7 Towards the Development of an Analytical

Framework for the Analysis of Visual
Identity-Building Practices in Belarus

This paper does not aim to present a completed research of the ways in which the
visual construction of the Belarusian identity currently operates. Rather, it deals
with one crucial aspect of qualitatively driven categorization for variables and
38 Y. Martinavichene

values that allows for formulating sound hypotheses and grounds content analysis
in a reliable theoretical context.
Semiotic resources have been identified in order to categorize the posters; most
of these categories are the dimensions of a visual text, which were proposed by
Kress and van Leeuwen (1996). The authors propose a well-grounded conceptu-
alization of a range visual structures as semiotic resources, however, in fact, many
issues that are discussed have been already discovered in the field of perceptual
studies by Rudolf Arnheim (whose influence Kress and van Leeuwen readily
admit). I also employ the model of the semiotic square (Greimas and Courtés 1979)
in order to organize particular values of each category around the axis of “dis-
tinctive features constituting a given semantic category” (Floch 1988: 238). This
model also helps organize values into three types of logic relations, namely, con-
trariety, contradiction, and implication, thus introducing a set of oppositions for the
entire structure of a discourse under consideration.

3.7.1 Hypotheses

As already mentioned, the aim of the research is to understand what characteristics

of the Belarusian national community and, more generally, what view of a current
situation in the country do the outdoor advertising messages construct.
My initial hypotheses concern three aspects that I found important in these
images.
(1) The first one conceptualizes a general ideological mode of the posters
(non-intentional, which the producers do not reflect upon), and assumes that the
posters construct mostly a festive type of community (i.e. represented in a
festive environment), outside of the private domain.
(2) The second one concerns the type of appeal that was consciously chosen to
carry an ideological function of identity-building, and assumes that the images
depicting “typical Belarusians” represent their models as socially close and as
someone viewers are already well-acquainted with in order to create a point of
mutual recognition.
(3) The third one considers the type of values that is promoted through this
discourse, and assumes that Belarus is represented as a society at a crossroads
with an emphasis on collectivist values and duties, counterbalanced by an
attention to personal success stories.

3.7.2 Variables and Values

Accordingly, the variables have been distributed along the axes of three binary
oppositions: festive–everyday (with special attention to an opposition of public–
private), close–distant, individual–collective.
3 The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis … 39

3.7.2.1 Testing the First Hypothesis: A Dichotomy of a Festive–

Everyday Community

As already mentioned, the first hypothesis needs devising categories mostly on the
iconic level, and is organized around a meaningful structure of an idea of “fes-
tivity”, which can be mapped by the semiotic square below (Fig. 3.1):
Accordingly, the main meanings inside this opposition are (Fig. 3.2):
The idea of festivity is usually realized through two systems of codes, namely,
the person code and the setting code.
The person code includes all the aspects that are significant in the way indi-
viduals are depicted in a visual message. Festivity may be connoted through such
categories as dress (in a range from folk costume to workwear) and body language
and mimics connoting good humor and corresponding to behavior (Table 3.1).
The setting code includes significant details of the place or surroundings in
which represented participants are depicted, as well as a design frame of an image.
The idea of festivity is retranslated through a special kind of venue (e.g. military
parade), depicting festive attributes (balloons, flags, etc.), and including decorative
elements into the layout of an image (Table 3.2).

3.7.2.2 Testing the Second Hypothesis: A Dichotomy of Close–Distant

Social Relations

The second hypothesis requires close attention to the level of the formal structure of
an image which is organized around a semiotic square where a binary opposition
“close–distant” plays a crucial role (Fig. 3.3).

Fig. 3.1 Semiotic square

based on a binary opposition
of “festivity–everydayness”

Fig. 3.2 Contextual

interpretation of “festivity–
everydayness” opposition
40 Y. Martinavichene

Table 3.1 Variables and values for testing the hypothesis on a festive character of Belarusian
nation’s representation: the person code
Category Values Definition (if needed)
Dress Festal (f) Formal and semi-formal dress, often decorated
with attributes that are considered as
not-everyday (i.e. ribbons)
Informal (e) Everyday and casual dress
Folk costume (n/e) Traditional attire worn at special celebrations
marked with honoring cultural heritage or
national holidays.
Workwear (n/f) Uniforms and clothes worn for work
Body Smiling or laughing (f,
language and n/e)
mimics Applauding (f, n/e)
Dancing (f, n/e)
Hands in the air (f, n/e)
Serious and/or concerned
facial expression (e, n/f)

Table 3.2 Variables and values for testing the hypothesis on a festive character of the Belarusian
nation’s representation: the setting code
Category Values Definition (if needed)
Venue Mass celebrations of state
holidays (including military
parades) (f)
Mass celebration of cultural
heritage holidays (n/e)
Places that are considered as Usually central parts of a city, historical and
holiday/free time venues (f) culturally significant city venues
Neutral public venue without
festive clues (e)
Working place and professional
settings (n/f)
Home, private venue, Not marked with any festive attributes
non-festive situation (e)
Home, private venue, festive Marked with some festive attributes
situation (f)
Non-identifiable context (e) The context occupies too little of the picture
space to be identifiable, is blurred or vague
Attributes Festive attributes (f, n/e) Balloons, ribbons, toys, musical instruments,
etc
Working instruments (n/f) Any professional appliances or instruments
designating a working place or any other
kind of working situation
No special attributes.
Image Decorative elements (f, n/e) Signs of festivity as part of image design
design Absence of decorative elements
(e, n/f)
3 The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis … 41

Fig. 3.3 Semiotic square

based on a binary opposition
of “close–distant”

Fig. 3.4 Contextual

interpretation of “close–
distant” opposition

Semantically this structure can be mapped into four terms (Fig. 3.4):
In this case the focus is shifted to the ways in which relations between the
represented (image heroes) and interactive participants (those communicating
through images on the sites of encoding and decoding a message) are visually
constructed. Basic categories are elaborated from semiotic resources that are
marked as crucial in the designing the position of a viewer by Kress and van
Leeuwen (1996). Social distance is encoded through different visual instruments
including (but not limited to) two large groups of codes: codes of integration
(namely, codes of composition) and codes of interaction.
Codes of composition include two important aspects—informational value of the
represented participants (the placement of the represented participants in the picture
plane) and physical salience of the represented participants. As Kress and van
Leeuwen note, “the placement of elements…endows them with the specific infor-
mational values attached to the various ‘zones’ of the image: left and right, top and
bottom, centre and margin” (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 177). In a Western
context left placement means something familiar and given, whereas right place-
ment corresponds to something new. The dialectics of the top and bottom corre-
sponds to our perception of the relations of earth and heaven, and may be
interpreted as an opposition between ideal (top) and real (bottom). However, these
dichotomies do not correspond directly to the type of social relation between the
represented and interactive participants and thus cannot be quantified into variables.
Central placement of elements is more relevant in this context as it is encoded as a
sign of particular importance, while peripheral placement corresponds to subordi-
nate information (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 179–199). Physical salience (or, in
other words, the visual weight of elements) is reached through the relational size of
a figure, sharpness, tonal and color contrasts, overlapping, etc. (Kress and van
Leeuwen 1996: 202).
42 Y. Martinavichene

Thus, compositionally a relation of intimacy between the represented partici-

pants and a viewer can be encoded with the help of central placement of physically
salient heroes that are depicted as dominating a composition (Table 3.3).
Another group of codes that are relevant for the construction of close/distant
relations between the represented participants and a viewer are codes of interaction
including such aspects as visual contact (the presence or absence of visual contact
between represented participants and a viewer); proxemic relations between the
represented participants and a viewer; aspects of focalization.
Visual contact is realized through the direct gaze of a represented participant at
the viewer: “When represented participants look at the viewer, vectors, formed by
participants’ eyelines, connect the participants with the viewer. Contact is estab-
lished, even if it is only on an imaginary level” (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996:
117). In this context indirect gaze (absence of visual contact between represented
participants and the viewer) means dissociation and estrangement.
Another important issue in construing relations between the represented and
interactive participants is size of the frame. It is widely acknowledged now, that our
relations with others determine the distance we intended to keep from them (see, for
example, Hall 1966). Thus, proxemic relations can be encoded by framing a person
in a picture and establish different imaginary relations between the depicted person
and the viewer. In this perspective, a close-up of a person connotes “nearness” and
personal affection, whereas a long shot corresponds to far social distance and
establishes impersonal relations with an alien “other”.
There are two more instruments to strengthen an imaginary bond between the
viewer and the represented participants. A horizontal angle of shot (frontal/oblique)
corresponds to the level of the viewer’s involvement in the picture:
The difference between the oblique and the frontal angle is the difference between
detachment and involvement. The horizontal angle encodes whether the image-producer
(and hence, willy-nilly, the viewer) is “involved“with the represented participants or not.
The frontal angle says, as it were, “What you see here is part of our world, something we
are involved with.” The oblique angle says, “What you see here is not part of our world; it
is their world, something we are not involved with.” (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 136)

Vertical angle of shot encodes power relations:

If a represented participant is seen from a high angle, then the relation between the
interactive (…) and the represented participants is depicted as one in which the interactive
participant has power over the represented participant (…). If the represented participant is
seen from a low angle, then the relation between the interactive and represented participants
is depicted as one in which the represented participant has power over the interactive
participant. If, finally, the picture is at eye level, then the point of view is one of equality
and there is no power difference involved. (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 140)

Thus, from the point of view of interactional aspects of an image a relation of

intimacy between the represented participants and a viewer can be encoded by
employing a direct look at the viewer, close and mid-size type of shots, and a
frontal eye-level angle of shooting (Table 3.4).
3 The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis … 43

Table 3.3 Variables and values for testing the hypothesis on construction of close relations
between represented participants and a viewer: code of composition
Category Values Definition (if needed)
Informational value: Central placement (c, Represented participants are placed on
central-periphery n/d) the top of an image plane
placement Peripheral placement (d, Represented participants are placed on
n/c) the bottom of an image plane
Even distribution Represented participants are depicted as
evenly occupying a whole picture plane;
opposition of central—periphery is not
relevant
Physical salience Represented participants At least some of the represented
are physically salient (c, participants are physically salient due to
n/d) the relative size, sharpness, tonal
contrasts and similar physical factors
Represented participants None of the represented participants is
are not physically salient salient
(d, n/c)

3.7.2.3 Testing the Third Hypothesis: A Dichotomy

of Individualist-Collectivist Values

The third hypothesis is built upon a dichotomy of collectivist and individualist

cultures, and based on an assumption that collectivist and individualist values are so
deeply embedded in a particular cultural context that inevitably influence our
self-image as independent or interdependent persons. Thus, in individualistic
societies emphasis is placed on the values of power, self-sufficiency, self-efficacy,
freedom of choice, individual achievements, while collectivistic societies empha-
size group-oriented values, tradition, conformity, and group accomplishments (for a
broader discussion see, for example, Schwartz 1988; Hofstede 2001; Konsky et al.
1999).
Individualistic and collectivistic types of values can be encoded in a visual
image through depicting certain kind of interactions between the represented par-
ticipants. However, some researchers have demonstrated that mixed types of cul-
tures exist where individualistic and collectivistic values can be integrated. Thus, a
model of semiotic square as exceeding a simple binary opposition is useful in this
context (Fig. 3.5).
Semantically this structure can be mapped into four terms (Fig. 3.6):
Individualistic and collectivistic types of values can be encoded in a visual
image through depicting certain kind of interactions between the represented par-
ticipants (the interactive person code) (see Table 3.5), as well as through the verbal
message (verbal code) (see Table 3.6). Gender aspect is included as an additional
one and is planned as a base for a further hypothesis on the type of society
promoted (patriarchal/matriarchal).
44 Y. Martinavichene

Table 3.4 Variables and values for testing the hypothesis on construction of close relations
between represented participants and a viewer: code of interaction
Category Values Definition (if needed)
Contact Direct look at the Represented participants (at least one of them) are
viewer (c, n/d) depicted as looking directly at the viewer
Indirect look at the Represented participants are depicted as not looking
viewer (d, n/c) at the viewer
Social Intimate distance Represented participants are shot in an extreme
distance (n/d) close-up or big close-up
Close personal Represented participants are shot in a
distance (c) close-up/medium close-up
Far personal Represented participants are shot in a mid shot
distance (c)
Close social Represented participants are shot in a medium long
distance (d) shot
Far social distance Represented participants are shot in a long shot
(n/c)
Public distance Represented participants are shot in an extreme long
(n/c) shot
Angle of Frontal point of Represented participants depicted in frontal angle or
shot: view (c, n/d) three-quarter front angle
horizontal Oblique point of Represented participants depicted in oblique angle,
view (d, n/c) three-quarter rear or rear angle
Angle of High angle (d, n/c) The camera is looking downward on represented
shot: vertical participants
Eye level (c, n/d) The camera is looking straight at the face of
represented participants
Low angle (d, n/c) The camera is looking upward on represented
participants

Fig. 3.5 Semiotic square

based on a binary opposition
of “individualistic–
collectivistic”

Fig. 3.6 Contextual

interpretation of
“individualistic–
collectivistic” opposition
3 The Use of Semiotics in Content Analysis … 45

Table 3.5 Variables and values for testing the hypothesis on types of dominant values: the
Interactive person code
Category Values
Type of Single male (i, n/cl)
social
grouping
Single female (i, n/cl)
Single child (i, n/cl)
A group of children (cl, n/i)
Family (cl, n/i)
Male collective (cl, n/i)
Female collective (cl, n/i)
Mixed collective (cl, n/i)
Definition
The picture depicts a single male participant
The picture depicts a single female participant
The picture depicts a single child participant
The picture depicts a group of children
The picture depicts a family
The picture depicts a group of males
The picture depicts a group of females
The picture depicts a mixed group that may
consist of males, females, and children

Table 3.6 Variables and values for testing the hypothesis on types of dominant values: verbal
code
Category Values Definition
Type of Individualistic (i) The slogan emphasizes individualistic values
accentuated (power, self-sufficiency, self-efficacy, freedom
values of choice, individual achievements)
Collectivistic (cl) The slogan emphasizes collectivistic values
(group-oriented values, tradition, conformity,
and group accomplishments)
Mixed—Universalism The slogan emphasizes universalistic values
(n/i) (equality, social justice, and unity with the
natural environment)
Mixed—Security (n/i) The slogan emphasizes values of security
(national and family security, global peace)
Mixed—Spirituality (n/cl) The slogan emphasizes spiritual values
(spiritual life and inner harmony)
No verbal slogan included A poster does not include a copy

3.8 Conclusions

The aim of this paper was to re-examine the possibilities of introducing semiotics
into the field of media content analysis as a qualitative interpretative tool in order to
make quantitative analytical procedures more sensitive to contextual and ideolog-
ical factors of media message circulation and production.
Through the course of working out a prospective outline for a content analysis of
Belarusian outdoor patriotic advertising semiotics (particularly, structural semiotics
and social semiotics) proved to allow for a quite precise formulation of hypotheses
46 Y. Martinavichene

and a deeper and theoretically grounded choice of variables and values for images
coding, partially moderating a researcher’s bias.
A preliminary test of the elaborated scheme on a narrow sample of messages
showed a high measure of intercoder reliability and proved the validity of inter-
ferences that is indicative of the relevance of such a research strategy in analyzing
ideologically driven texts.

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